March 2015 Railway Age

RailwayAge

March 2015 | www.railwayage.com

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Tom Hoback

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RailwayAge

MARCH 2015

visit us at www.railwayage.com Features Entrepreneurial railroader 20 Short Line Railroad of the Year 24 Regional Railroad of the Year 28 Don’t reface it; replace it 36 No slowdown for FasTracks 42

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News/Columns From the Editor Update Watching Washington Perspective Financial Edge

2 10 17 18 52

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Departments Industry Indicators Industry Outlook Market People 100 Years Ago Meetings Products Advertising Index Professional Directory Classified

4 6 8 46 46 46 47 49 50 50

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On the Cover Thomas Hoback, INRD CEO

Photo: Indiana Rail Road Co.

Railway Age, USPS 449-130, is published monthly by the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation, 55 Broad St., 26th Fl., New York, NY 10004. Tel. (212) 620-7200; FAX (212) 633-1863. Vol. 216, No. 3.

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March 2015 Railway Age 1

From the Editor William C. Vantuono

Editorial and Executive Offices Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp.

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An errant shift, and tragedy

A

s a self-proclaimed “car guy,” this is probably the most difficult column I’ve ever written. It’s the first time to my recollection that an unusual, but not necessarily faulty, automotive design element may have led to a horrific grade crossing accident. But the story must be told, and I hope the automotive industry— Mercedes-Benz, in particular—is listening.

Recalling the awful grade crossing accident last month on Metro-North at Valhalla, N.Y., that claimed six lives, including the driver of the vehicle and five onboard the train, “perfect storm” is an understatement: A head-on collision during the evening rush on the Taconic State Parkway (an old highway with no center divider in some spots and lacking modern on and off ramps) results in a shutdown of that highway and a detour of all traffic. Cars are inching along Commerce Street, where there is a grade crossing with MetroNorth’s busy double-track Harlem Line.

The crossing is a short distance away from where Commerce Street intersects, at a traffic light, with the Taconic State, so cars are backed up at that crossing while attempting to re-enter the highway.

Ellen Brody, a 49-year-old mother of three who had just left her job at an upscale jewelry store in Chappaqua, N.Y., is caught in traffic in her new MercedesBenz ML350 SUV, in an area with which she’s probably unfamiliar. For reasons unknown, she enters onto the crossing and stops, in that small space between the gates and the tracks, perhaps just shy of the tracks. A crossing gate arm comes down and hits the rear of her SUV. She gets out of the vehicle, walks back to look at it, proceeds to get back in the vehicle— and then drives forward into the path of northbound Metro-North train 659, operating express on the left-hand running track under NORAC Rule 261.

The force of the impact pushes Brody’s car up the tracks, the nose of the ML350 2

Railway Age

March 2015

RailwayAge

just missing the center-mounted electrified third rail. But then, where the tracks curve to the right—and where the third rail transitions to the outside of the curve —the third rail spears the SUV’s gas tank, causing a fire and explosion. Third-rail sections break off in 39-foot lengths and, like flaming arrows, penetrate the underfloor of the M7 EMU. The interior of the railcar, with 12 sections of flaming third rail stacking up inside, starts burning up.

The SUV is incinerated. Six people die.

Several others are injured.

Why did Brody drive forward, instead of back up (a driver behind her, who had left enough room, frantically yelling and motioning for her to do that) or abandon her vehicle? The answer may lie in the unusual design of the ML350’s steeringcolumn-mounted electronic gearshift lever: Push the lever in, and the automatic transmission goes from Park to Neutral.

Then, flip it up to engage Reverse; down to engage Drive. This is similar to the P-R-N-D sequence with which most drivers are familiar, but different in that the sequence is P-N, then R or D. Brody had purchased the ML350 only a few weeks prior to the accident. Like many of us with new cars, she may have been a bit unfamiliar with the vehicle’s sophisticated electronic controls. It could be that, panicking as the train (which was in full emergency braking) bore down on her, she mistakenly flipped the gearshift lever down instead of up, propelling the SUV forward. “Tragic” doesn’t even begin to describe this, if this is what happened.

Is Ellen Brody at fault? She did drive onto the crossing (and if even just the nose of your car is past the gates, you are on the crossing). But a presumed errant gearshift lever application? That’s something the NTSB, and the lawyers, including those representing Mercedes-Benz, will have to sort through.

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Industry Indicators TRAFFIC ORIGINATED CARLOADS

SHORT LINE AND REGIONAL TRAFFIC INDEX FOUR WEEKS ENDING JAN. 31, 2015

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

by Commodity Grain Farm Products ex. Grain Grain Mill Products Food products Chemicals Petroleum & Petroleum Products Coal Primary Forest Products Lumber and Wood Products Pulp and Paper Products Metallic Ores Coke Primary Metal Products Iron and Steel Scrap Motor Vehicles and Parts Crushed Stone, Sand, and Gravel Nonmetallic Minerals Stone, Clay & Glass Products Waste & Nonferrous Scrap All Other Carloads Total U.S. CarLoadS

JAN ’15 94,650 4,008 39,400 25,733 122,678 62,040 452,594 6,258 13,935 24,893 21,456 15,899 40,672 18,128 62,020 82,562 16,919 28,356 12,189 16,452 1,160,842

JAN. ’14 85,695 3,824 38,570 25,203 118,005 58,059 433,516 6,036 13,397 24,103 18,888 14,085 40,128 17,762 58,060 67,640 18,138 26,787 11,953 19,129 1,098,978

% CHANGE 10.4% 4.8% 2.2% 2.1% 4.0% 6.9% 4.4% 3.7% 4.0% 3.3% 13.6% 12.9% 1.4% 2.1% 6.8% 22.1% -6.7% 5.9% 2.0% -14.0% 5.6%

313,606

287,103

9.2%

1,474,448

1,386,081

6.4%

CARLOADS

Chemicals Coal Crushed Stone / Sand / Gravel Food & Kindred Products Grain Grain Mill Products Lumber & Wood Products Metallic Ores Metals & Products Motor Vehicles & Equipment Nonmetallic Minerals Petroleum Products Pulp, Paper & Allied Products Stone, Clay & Glass Products Trailers / Containers Waste & Nonferrous Scrap All Other Carloads

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR INTERMODAL

FOUR WEEKS ENDING JAN. 31, 2015

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

by Commodity TRAILERS CONTAINERS TOTAL UNITS

JAN. ’15 118,153 886,914 1,005,067

JAN. ’14 115,702 880,707 996,409

% CHANGE 2.1% 0.7% 0.9%

6,669 229,473 236,142

6,985 195,415 202,400

-4.5% 17.4% 16.7%

124,822 1,116,387 1,241,209

122,687 1,076,122 1,198,809

1.7% 3.7% 3.5%

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR TRAILERS CONTAINERS TOTAL COMBINED UNITS

Source: Monthly Railroad Traffic, Association of American Railroads

average weekly U.S. Rail Carloads: all commodities (not seasonally adjusted)

% CHANGE 8.3% 57.9% 29.0% -4.4% 21.3% 5.8% 1.9% -27.3% 16.1% -0.7% 10.8% -1.4% 0.7% 16.7% -0.7% 5.3% -2.0%

JAN. 2015 - 379,304 JAN. 2014 - 352,829 300,000 310,000 320,000 330,000 340,000 350,000 360,000 370,000 380,000 390,000 Copyright © 2014 All rights reserved.

Railroad employment, Class I linehaul carriers, JANUARY 2015 (% change from JANUARY 2014)

CANADIAN RAILROADS TRAILERS CONTAINERS TOTAL UNITS

ORIGINATED JAN. '14 45,909 16,755 23,835 12,683 23,330 6,878 9,664 10,125 19,812 9,941 2,695 2,092 21,835 10,246 42,514 9,862 84,653

TOTAL CARLOADS, MONTH 2015 VS. 2014

CANADIAN RAILROADS ALL Commodities

ORIGINATED JAN. '15 49,729 26,454 30,751 12,123 28,299 7,277 9,850 7,365 23,009 9,868 2,985 2,063 21,979 11,956 42,224 10,383 82,989

BY Commodity

Transportation (train and engine) 69,921 5.95%

Executives, Officials, and Staff Assistants 9,621 (-2.08%)

Professional and Administrative 13,600 (-3.20%)

Total employees: 164,568 % change from JAN. 2014: 1.41% Transportation (other than train & engine) 6,370 (-4.17%)

Maintenance of Equipment and Stores 30,071 1.03%

Maintenanceof-Way and Structures 34,985 (-2.84%)

Source: Surface Transportation Board

Employment EDGES UP FROM YEAR-AGO, DROPS FROM DECEMBER Figures released by the Surface Transportation Board show Class I total railroad employment rose 1.41% in mid-January 2015, measured against mid-January 2014, powered mostly by a year-over-year rise in Transportation (train and engine) that counterbalanced losses in four employee categories. Employment fell 3.67% from mid-December 2014, with declines in all six employment categories, led by Transportation (other than train and engine), down 4.94%.

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Railway Age

March 2015

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Industry Outlook State troopers shun bigger trucks

MassDOT completes short line buy

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has completed its purchase of 37 miles of Housatonic Railroad right-of-way stretching from Pittsfield, Mass., to Canaan, Conn., the railroad’s headquarters city sitting just across the Massachusetts-Connecticut border.

MassDOT, announcing the transaction last month, said the purchase price was $12.1 million, financed by a state transportation bond bill. MassDOT and other officials, including former Gov. Deval Patrick, had increased their verbal emphasis on the purchase as a precursor to restored passenger rail service linking Pittsfield, Connecticut points, and even Grand Central Terminal in New York.

Housatonic Railroad President John Hanlon has helped drive the idea, commissioning a study in 2010 identifying passenger potential.

Hanlon, interviewed by Railway Age, said such potential includes “second home” customers traveling between metropolitan New York and the Berkshires.

But some observers doubt current Massachusets Gov. Charlie Baker rates the project as a priority.

MBTA GM is snowed under DART sets streetcar debut Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) last month set plans to launch Oak Cliff streetcar service on April 13, 2015, linking Dallas Union Station and Methodist Dallas Medical Center. A Brookville Equipment Corp. spokesman assured Railway Age that despite some doubts from observers, the company’s streetcars are “scheduled for delivery to support DART’s needs.” Oak Cliff neighborhood residents championed the $51 million project. The debut will occur along 1.6 miles of right-of-way, eventually running for two miles.

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Railway Age

March 2015

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) General Manager Beverly Scott on Feb. 11, 2015 said she was stepping down from her position, following mounting criticism of MBTA’s operational struggles due to repeated snowstorms.

MBTA struggled to reestablish service throughout the month on its regional rail and light rail transit routes, which MBTA said might take as long as 30 days to resume systemwide.

Scott steps down with 10 months left in her three-year contract, giving Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a severe critic of Scott, an opportunity to select a successor. Scott noted MBTA infrastructure and facilities were more than a century old, and suffered from overcrowding and lack of funding.

A Coalition Against Bigger Trucks (CABT)-commissioned poll says that nearly 80% of Americans oppose longer and heavier semitrailer trucks. The National Troopers Coalition (NTC), an advocacy group for state troopers that patrol the nation’s Interstate Highway system, supports the poll’s results.

“Speaking on behalf of the morethan 45,000 members of the National Troopers Coalition, I can tell you that law enforcement officers have known for quite some time that bigger trucks threaten highway safety, and this poll shows that the public knows it, too,” said NTC Chairman Mat Hodapp, a Minnesota state trooper.

CABT commissioned the liveoperator survey of 1,000 nationwide respondents.

The poll, conducted Jan. 5-8, 2015

by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Harper Polling, had a margin of error of plus owr minus 3.1%. The results said that 76% of respondents oppose longer and heavier semitrailer trucks, while 15% support them and 9% are unsure.

“This nationwide poll illustrates that motorists clearly do not want to be flanked by longer or heavier tractortrailers on the highway, and that goes for Republicans and Democrats alike,” said Brock McCleary, president of Harper Polling.

He added, “The trend was largely consistent across political identification, region, age, and gender.

Also, respondents seem concerned with elected officials who support truck size and weight increases: 57% of respondents said they are less likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who supports longer and heavier trucks.”

“As a state trooper, I’ve always promised to keep public safety as my top priority,” said Mat Hodapp. “For more than 20 years, I’ve committed myself to stopping the expansion of bigger trucks. There’s nothing safe about them on our highways. Congress should listen to law enforcement and the public on this.”

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Market

Grand Central LIRR concourse contract awarded New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) awarded GCT Constructors JV, a joint venture consisting of Schiavone Construction Co. and John P. Picone Inc., a contract worth a minimum of $404.8 million to build the future Long Island Rail Road concourse at Grand Central Terminal, part of MTA’s East Side Access (ESA) project. Funding is derived from Federal Transit Administration and MTA local funds. Architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical facilities, as well as escalators and elevators, will comprise the future LIRR passenger train concourse and related ventilation plants adjacent to existing operations involving LIRR sister agency Metro-North Railroad.

FLORIDA EAST COAST RAILWAY: Signed a contract with Wi-Tronix, LLC” where Wi-Tronix will continue to provide remote locomotive monitoring and Software as a Service (SaaS) to FECR’s entire fleet, including its 24 new GE Evolution Series ES44C4 locomotives.

METRA: Awarded Progress Rail Services Corp. a $91.1 million contract to rehabilitate 41 EMD F40PH-2 and F40PHM-2 locomotives to “like new” condition.

METRO TRANSIT (MINNESOTA): Awarded New York-based Titan a five-year contract, with two additional one-year options, for all advertising rights on Metro Transit trains, light rail transit, and buses serving Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF WATERLOO (ONTARIO): Exercised a three-year option to extend its existing light rail transit general engineering 8

Railway Age

March 2015

contract with Parsons Brinckerhoff and its Montreal-based parent company, WSP. TRI-RAIL (SFRTA) Awarded Transdev’s U.S. rail infrastructure maintenance subsidiary, VTMI, a $161 million contract to maintain track, signaling, and structures on the 71-mile Tri-Rail regional rail line from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

Worldwide

including rolling stock for the first phase of the Doha metro network.

SKANETRAFIKEN (SWEDEN) Awarded Alstom a $180 million contract to supply 25 additional class X61 Coradia Nordic electric multiple-units (EMUs), taking its total fleet of these trains to 99 sets.

Skånetrafiken placed an order for 49 X61s in 2006, and a further 20 sets were ordered in 2011.

RHINE-RUHR TRANSPORT AUTHORITY (GERMANY): Selected Siemens as preferred bidder to supply 82 electric multiple-units (EMUs) for the Rhine-Ruhr Express (RRX) network and maintain the fleet for 30 years.

SWISS FEDERAL RAILWAYS: Exercised an option worth SFr 120 million ($128.8 million) with Alstom for four additional ETR 610 Pendolino tilting electric multiple-units (EMUs), following two previous orders totaling 22 seven-car trains.

QATAR RAILWAYS : Sent a conditional letter of acceptance to its preferred bidder, a consortium of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Mitsubishi Corporation, Hitachi, Kinki Sharyo, and Thales for a turnkey contract to supply electrical and mechanical systems

PARIS TRANSPORT AUTHORITY: WIth Ile-de-France Transport Authority (Stif) and Grand Paris (SGP), jointly placed a 15-year framework contract with Alstom worth in excess of €2 billion ($2.3 billion) for a fleet of 217 MP 14 rubber-tired metro trains.

MTA/Patrick Cashin

North America

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Update Bombardier LRVs OK’d for Waterloo region LRT The Waterloo (Ontario) Regional Council last month formally approved an agreement in coordination with Greater Toronto Area’s Metrolinx to purchase 14 light rail transit vehicles from Bombardier Transportation for roughly C$92.4 million (US$73.9 million). Production of the Flexity Freedom gear is scheduled to begin next year, with delivery beginning in the summer of 2016.

The council also can exercise an option for 14 additional cars. The Waterloo order is in some ways technically an add-on order to previous orders made by Toronto Transit Commission and Metrolinx.

The Waterloo region lies roughly 65 miles west of Toronto.

Wabtec to provide PTC for NCTD Coaster service Wabtec Corp. has signed a $9 million contract with Herzog Technologies Inc. to provide Positive Train Control (PTC) equipment and services for Oceanside, Calif.’s North County Transit District (NCTD). The contract includes an option worth an additional $5 million. Under the initial contract, Wabtec will provide its Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS®), including installation, for seven locomotives and 10 cab cars on NCTD’s Coaster regional rail system, which operates on approximately 60 miles of BNSF right-of-way. Wabtec will also provide back office engineering and systems integration support.

The system will be fully interoperable with BNSF’s PTC system and that of other Class I railroads, all of which are using a version of Wabtec’s ETMS technology for back-office systems and onboard applications for Positive Train Control.

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Railway Age March 2015

Oil train wrecks spotlight tank car limits—and dilbit’s dangers

T

wo same-day derailments of crude oil trains in Canada and a third in West Virginia two days later illustrate the strengths and limitations of the newest general-purpose tank cars plying North American rails—and the previously unknown dangers of “dilbit,” a mixture of bitumen and diluents that may be as volatile as Bakken crude.

CN’s Feb. 14 seven-car blaze in a roadless area of northern Ontario, where 29 cars of a 100-car train derailed, involved CPC-1232 cars. A smaller event on the Canadian Pacific (pictured, above) on the same day in southern Alberta was an encouraging real-world trial of CPC-1232 tank car.

A westbound CP train carrying crude from Western Canada jumped the tracks in the midst of a rocky debris field. Twelve CPC-1232 tank cars derailed, two of them toppling into the debris field and coming to rest on their sides. No crude leaked from the two tank cars. A broken rail was responsible.

The CPC-1232 car is designed to contain its lading in relatively slowspeed derailments and rollovers. As the CP event indicates, they work as designed in low-energy incidents.

Carbuilders themselves advise that neither the CPC-1232 nor its yet-tobe-approved official successor could withstand the forces of high-speed derailments or collisions.

The two Canadian oil train derailments were followed by the Feb. 16 derailment in Mount Carbon, W.Va. of a CSX train hauling 107 CPC-1232 tank cars of Bakken crude. Two tank cars went into the Kanawha River, and at least 17 ignited, several exploding.

Both the CSX wreck in West Virginia and the CN derailment and explosions in Ontario involved CPC-1232 tank cars, underscoring the fact that the overwhelming risk factor is the explosivity of untreated crude oil, not the inadequacy of the older DOT-111.

The forthcoming DOT-117 tank car specification is very much like the CPC-1232, with the probable difference of a 1/8-inch thicker tank shell.

Carbuilders themselves recently warned that no amount of extra metal or sophisticated engineering will protect against breaches and fires in high-energy derailments.

The DOT-117, like the CPC-1232, is designed to contain its lading in slow-speed derailments and rollovers, such as the CP incident.

Chain reaction fireballs appear to be as much a phenomena in the Ontario and West Virginia disasters as they were in the Lac-Mégantic catastrophe in 2013. The DOT-111 cars in that event became the focus of accident investigators who noted the volatility of Bakken crude, but did nothing other than

David Thomas

Supply Briefs

asking shippers to classify it accurately.

CN’s conflagration is the most disturbing of the two mishaps involving fire and explosions: The train was laden with bitumen, the extra-heavy tarry substance extracted from Alberta’s oil sands. Undiluted bitumen alone, with a flash point of +166ºC, is considered essentially non-flammable in a derailment event and is rarely considered in safety evaluations of CBR. So why did the bitumen ignite and explode in Ontario’s -40ºC (-40ºF) weather? The reason, based on research consulted by Railway Age, is that the diluent added to make bitumen flow into and out of tank cars makes the blended lading quite volatile.

This blend of bitumen and petroleumbased diluents, known as “dilbit,” has a low flash point. Thus, the widespread belief that bitumen from Alberta’s northern oil sands is far safer to transport by rail than Bakken crude is, for all intents and purposes, dead wrong. This

may be disruptive news for bitumen It says that dilbit will ignite upon shippers, carriers, and regulators. exposure to an ignition source at The hope for Bakken crude is that -35ºC, compared to -9ºC for convenit can be treated to remove benzene tional light oil. The flash point of raw and other “light end” substances before diluent is -35ºC or less. The reason for loading, rendering it mildly flammable the low flash point of dilbit is that ignitinstead of highly explosive. The same is ability is determined by a blend’s most not true for dilbit, because the highly volatile components, in this case, the volatile diluents are added to the crude diluent itself. Thus, flash point is the to make it less viscous. A safer procecritical factor in determining whether dure is to heat bitumen at origin before a tank car breach will lead to its loading into a tank car and again at contents burning or exploding upon destination, prior to unloading. Some exposure to the pyrotechnics of a hightank cars are equipped with internal energy derailment. steam coils for this purpose and are Canada’s Transportation Safety Board used in crude oil service, but a require- can be expected to analyze the dilbit ment for such heating elements is not lading of CN’s Ontario accident, as it included in the specifications proposed did the Bakken crude that exploded at Final Ad Art Dec 2012:Layout 1 12/27/12 1:34 PM Page 1 for the DOT-117.

Lac-Mégantic. TSB reported then that According to “Properties of Dilbit Bakken crude is more volatile than and Conventional Crude Oils,” a other varieties. Should TSB conclude February 2014 report by Alberta that dilbit has a volatility similar to Innovates, “[T]he flash point of fresh Bakken crude, the hazmat classification dilbit is initially lower than other oil of crude oil could be in question. types and is comparable to a diluent.”

—David Thomas, Contributing Editor

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March 2015 Railway Age 11

Update

Genesee & Wyoming has agreed to acquire a 95% stake in Britain’s Freightliner Group from Arcapita and other shareholders for $755 million in cash.

G&W will assume around £8.5

12

Railway Age March 2015

million in net debt and capitalized leases as part of the deal. Members of the existing Freightliner management team will retain a 5% stake.

Freightliner is Britain’s second-largest freight rail operator and is active in the intermodal, bulk, and infrastructure sectors. The company operates 13 intermodal terminals in Britain, eight of which it owns, and also has a fleet of 250 trucks for local pick-up and delivery.

Freightliner’s Polish subsidiary operates in Poland and eastern Germany, while Rotterdam, Netherlands-based subsidiary ERS Railways provides cross-border intermodal services from North Sea ports to terminals in Germany, Poland, and Italy.

In Australia, Freightliner transports coal and containerized agricultural products for customers in New South Wales and is also licensed to operate in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia,

and Western Australia. G&W plans to combine its existing Australian operations in South Australia and the Northern Territory with those of Freightliner, and these operations are expected to generate around 12% of group revenue.

Freightliner’s global fleet comprises around 250 standard-gauge locomotives and 5,500 freight cars, most of which are leased with maintenance being carried out in-house.

Freightliner generates annual revenue of around $785 million, with 65% coming from Britain, 25% from mainland Europe, and 10% from Australia. The company employs around 2,500 staff worldwide.

During its first year of ownership G&W expects Freightliner to generate revenue of $785 million and EBITDA of $93 million. Capital expenditure is forecast to be around $26 million.

Keith Barrow

Genesee & Wyoming to acquire Freightliner

Bruce Kelly

IANA: 2014 intermodal growth “across the board” Across-the-board fourth-quarter growth, augmenting “significant midyear gains,” contributed to “strong overall intermodal performance in 2014,” the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) said last month.

“Despite the harsh winter that kicked off the year, intermodal volume improved 4.8% in 2014, with domestic containers leading growth and international intermodal delivering its biggest year-over-year advance since 2011,” IANA reported.

“Intermodal performed well, despite industry-wide challenges,” said IANA President and CEO Joni Casey. “For the first time in four years, international, domestic container, and trailer market segments all posted year-over-year growth. And volume gains were widespread geographically, with eight out of nine regions recording increases during 2014.”

Domestic containers led all gains in 2014, growing 5.7% from 2013 levels.

International almost doubled its growth pace of the last three years, reporting a 4.4% increase.

IANA said fourth-quarter numbers reflected “a relatively soft 3% growth rate, but gains were broad-based.

Domestic containers once again led the way with a 5.1% quarter-over-quarter increase. International containers grew 2.1% quarter-over-quarter, with trailers eking out a 0.1% boost, which is more than it appears given this segment’s solid showing in fourthquarter 2013.”

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Update Tank car builder chooses NYAB DB-60 II with BCM™ New York Air Brake (NYAB) last month shipped its first DB-60 II air brake control valves equipped with its new Brake Cylinder Maintaining (BCM™) feature. The valves will be installed in new CPC-1232-spec tank cars designed to carry Bakken crude oil, and scheduled to enter service in April.

The railcar manufacturer was not disclosed.

Recently approved by the Association of American Railroads, the BCM™ replenishes brake cylinder pressure when a leak occurs.

“An improved margin of safety is the biggest factor in choosing the DB-60 II air brake control valve,” says Jason Connell, Senior Vice President Sales/ Marketing and Service, New York Air Brake LLC. “As long as trains continue to be a principal means of crude oil transport, train safety will remain a major concern of oil producers,

railroads, and railcar owners, as well as the communities through which they travel.

Stakeholders continue to be interested in any technology or technique that improves railroad safety, notably with respect to tank car movements. We are especially pleased that BCM™ is available at a very reasonable cost to railroads and railcar owners.”

NYAB reports it designed and built the “new, safer” DB-60 II air brake control valve with the capability to maintain up to 85% of brake cylinder pressure in the event of a leak. “All air brakes leak to some extent—the allowable standard is 1 PSI per minute—and they are likely to leak more when worn or in very cold weather,” says Product Line Manager for Freight Control Valves Parrish Lewis.

“Even a small leak can hurt performance. The DB-60 II’s BCM feature enables a constant recharge of the brake cylinder during braking.

“This improves safety and ensures even brake cylinder pressure along the entire length of the train, enabling the cars in the train to brake evenly and effectively.”

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14

Railway Age March 2015

(West) Sacramento streetcar clears first TOD vote By a roughly 2-to-1 majority, Sacramento, Calif., property owners along a proposed streetcar route last month approved plans to fund $30 million toward the cost of the 3.3-mile, $150 million project within the state capital.

The streetcar, for which voters in neighboring West Sacramento approved a funding tax in November 2008, still faces another vote within Sacramento in May. But supporters took heart from the vote, which was weighted, with larger property owners in the Transit Oriented District (TOD) presumably paying more for any project given a corresponding voting influence.

Smaller property owners reportedly were more likely to vote against the plan. But a Sacramento City councilman who owns a house three blocks from the proposed line has said the

impact on smaller owners would be proportional, and that he himself would pay a $36 annual fee.

The vote is seen as an indicator for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) that local funding and support is solid. Under President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal, FTA would cover roughly 50% of the streetcar capital cost or $75 million, subject to matching funds. Last May FTA officials expressed conceptual support for the proposed line.

Next up is a vote in May, when 3,800 registered voters who live within three blocks of the proposed line will vote yes or no on the project. Registered voters in the streetcar line area who don’t own property will not be asked to help finance the project.

“We’re really pleased,” project spokesman Kirk Trost, an attorney with the Sacramento Area Council of

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Governments, said. “I think it is a great endorsement. When we’ve had the opportunity to sit down with people and make the business case about what the streetcar could mean to the region, they obviously are convinced that ... it is worth the time.”

Supporters include the National Basketball Association (NBA) Sacramento Kings, who with partners plan to build an arena, hotel, and other amenities to be served by the line.

Others backing the plan include the owner of U.S. Bank Tower, and the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

The line would run from West Sacramento points across Tower Bridge into Sacramento, the state capital, serving numerous business and retail neighborhoods as well as interfacing with Sacramento Regional Transit District light rail transit service and Amtrak intercity trains.

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Update VanderClute retires from AAR

Association of American Railroads Senior Vice President of Safety & Operations Robert VanderClute, a 44-year career railroader, has retired after 12 years with the organization. He is succeeded by Michael Rush, who has been with the AAR since 1980 and will be moving from his position as associate general counsel.

VanderClute is a life-long railroader, having spent 27 years with Amtrak, rising to the position of vice president of operations and chief operating officer. Before coming to the AAR in 2002, he spent five years as vice president for rail with Parsons Brinckerhoff, and 27 years with Amtrak, starting as a transportation supervisor in Los Angeles and working his way up to vice president and chief operating officer.

VanderClute received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee and also completed the transportation executive program at Harvard University. He is a past recipient of Railway Age’s W. Graham Claytor Jr. Award for Distinguished Service to Passenger Transportation.

“This industry has changed dramatically, and for the better, during the past 44 years,” VanderClute told Railway Age. “Deferred maintenance has all but been eliminated. There’s a new generation of motive power. Safety is vastly improved. And there’s a new generation of management that practices a management style that’s more beneficial for employees. Yet, safety always needs to be improved, and we still have a huge job ahead of us.”

16

Railway Age March 2015

Watching Washington Frank n. wilner

Predestined: The top cop at Amtrak

I

read the news today, oh boy.

No mention of a terrorist attack.

No shootings. A human trafficker in custody; his young traveling companion safe. A kilo of crystal meth confiscated—ID’d by a K-9; the mule jailed.

An Amtrak passenger cuffed at Newark Penn Station after threatening a conductor. A pickpocket collared at the Sanford, Fla., Auto Train station.

No matter the news, Polly Hanson hears the facts first. She’d better. She’s Amtrak’s police chief—a job guaranteed to deliver the willies some nights; create smiles others. Yet unlike many cops turned cynical by the seediness of their daily encounters, Hanson grasps the value of community policing and friendly interaction, abetted surely by an undergraduate degree in communications from Temple University and a master’s in behavioral sciences from Johns Hopkins.

Hanson says she wanted to be a dancer, or fashion model—not a cop.

Seriously, Polly? Ballet dancers aren’t on a national stage at age 59. And that police uniform, accessorized with four stars designating the chief, and a Glock sidearm, is no lame fashion statement on a still athletic frame.

Where New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton frets over securing the city that never sleeps, and D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier worries over safeguarding America’s capital city, Hanson’s responsibility stretches across 21,000 track-miles— much of that obligation on the move 24/7, carrying 31 million souls annually. The stakes ramp-up on steroids when political conventions and major sports events occur in proximity to Amtrak stations.

Amtrak’s police force is 500 strong, uniformed and plain clothes, with dozens tethered to K-9s whose 220 million scent receptors decisively trump the five million in a human schnoz.

Such a silly you if you think railroading’s most extreme pressure is borne by yardmasters or CEOs. Any day Amtrak’s crime fighting success rate falls below 100%, the outcome is excessively painful for at least one innocent victim— or too many to count.

How Hanson and her officers sleep at night is a good question. It can’t be soundly. We, however, sleep better for their sleep deprivation.

For sure, time-honored gumshoe methods, popularized in pulp fiction

by Mickey Spillane, Jimmy Breslin, and Pete Hamill, remain effective for some crime. State police lend helicopters for airborne track surveillance; K-9 sniffers come courtesy of the Transportation Security Administration; partnerships are in place with freight railroad and municipal police departments.

Geekiness, however, has become indispensable to cop shops since the disaffected and radicalized—organized

and lone wolf—increasingly channel antisocial behavior, twisted ideology, and violent tendencies toward blowing things up with people inside or aboard.

Think transit attacks in Tokyo, Moscow, London, and Madrid.

Warning signs precede attacks: “One doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be a terrorist,” Hanson says.

Thus, Amtrak has police following global social media, daily swapping their intelligence—behavioral analysis, suspicions, expectations—with an alphabet soup of more than a halfdozen federal agencies similarly engaged, including the CIA and FBI. Unlike airports, multipurpose train stations don’t lend themselves to blanket passenger screening. The track network cannot be enclosed, and bridges and tunnels are everlastingly vulnerable. It is in this environment that tactics are developed, modified, and shuffled to “create an uncertainly” among potential perps, Hanson says.

Hanson has been policing since college. Stints included near three decades with Washington, D.C.’s transit agency, where Hanson, before rising to chief, was promoted to sergeant by its once general manager, David Gunn, who became an Amtrak president. Her father, Dan Hanson Sr., once president of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and D.C.’s highway director, hired a young Tom Downs (another former Amtrak president) for a transportation assignment.

Current Amtrak President Joe Boardman deemed her resume unequalled.

Perhaps there is truth to predestination. Forget her mention of dancer and fashion model. Her role model was cowgirl gun slinger Annie Oakley— “courageous … self-reliant,” Hanson says. For sure, the Amtrak top cop job always had Hanson’s name on it. It was just a matter of when.

March 2015 Railway Age 17

Perspective JOHN LANGMORE

Surmounting Austin’s rail travails

W

inston Churchill said: “In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity.

In Peace: Good Will.”

The words of Churchill could certainly serve as a template for the post-election atmosphere in Austin, Tex., following the decision of the electorate late last year to not adopt the City of Austin’s Transportation Bond (commonly referred to as Proposition 1).

As elections often do, it’s fair to say that the debate over Prop. 1 divided people throughout Austin. But in looking back, it’s safe to say we finally have the most statistically accurate feedback we’re ever going to get about Central Texans’ views on transportation. Voting results from Austin’s Prop. 1 make clear the region’s straightforward response to resolving mobility issues.

As a map published in an Austin American-Statesman article by reporter Ben Wear revealed, those living and working in the highly congested regional core strongly desire rail transit, and they’re willing to pay for it Those living outside central Austin, particularly in the Northwest and Southwest, aren’t willing to pay such a heavy price for something that only indirectly benefits them.

Furthermore, the road improvements in Prop. 1 weren’t enough to convince them to make a substantial investment in the form of a “yes” vote on Election Day. That Central Austin wants and understands the benefits of rail transit is an undeniable conclusion from this year’s election results. That’s no surprise given the increasing density in the core, the constrained right-of-way, and the high capacity of rail transit.

It also promotes the vision the region has set for itself over years of public input in the form of mixed-use, walkable activity centers connected by high-capacity transit.

18

Railway Age

March 2015

At the same time, while having a sustainable Central Austin benefits the entire region, the $600 million of local funds proposed to be spent on rail does little initially to resolve the very real mobility needs for those living in the far Northwest, Southwest, and Southeast.

Those regions’ strong opposition to Prop. 1 was perfectly logical, given the congestion they’re battling and the increase in their property taxes that would have followed.

Those living outside Central Austin weren’t willing to pay for something that only indirectly benefits them.

So where does that leave us? If we do nothing, traffic is obviously only going to get worse and take our precious quality of life with it. While the failed adoption of Prop. 1 is a setback, it does not push the reset button on years of hard work.

We need a more comprehensive package of mobility solutions tailored to the needs of the particular part of the region it serves.

While Central Austin wants and needs rail transit, the outlying suburbs that don’t currently have the density to justify rail’s cost need additional options, like more roadway improvements and bus service, to meet their mobility needs.

That is the mobility package that should be constructed and put to voters by the City of Austin, Travis County, and Capital Metro, in conjunction with the Capital Area Metropolitan

Planning Organization (CAMPO), Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (the regional toll authority), sooner rather than later.

Those that argued over Prop. 1 (myself included) did all Central Texans a disservice by failing to adequately acknowledge that different mobility solutions have merit in different environments. I’m confident Central Texans would be willing to pay for a significant transportation package if tailored for the region’s differing needs.

Under such a scenario, rail riders would be sharing the cost of appropriate road development costs, and road users would in turn be supporting the costs of rail transit development. The fate of the entire region would be more appropriately tied together than it was in Proposition 1.

Despite the outcome of the election, efforts to help improve the quality of life in Austin will continue. Again, as Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

Now the issue is simply whether or not our newly elected officials will do the hard work it takes to move something like that forward.

For everyone that loves Austin, I certainly hope so.

John Langmore is a transportation and land use consultant who has assisted in the financing of numerous roadway projects, worked on the largest pending rail relocation project in Texas, and has been a team member on successful bids on some of the country's largest infrastructure projects. He has served on the board of directors of Capital Metro, Envision Central Texas, the Alliance for Public Transportation, and the Congress for the New Urbanism. Langmore has a B.B.A. degree with honors and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.

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Entrepreneurial railroader

From branch line to blockbuster, the Indiana Rail Road story is largely that of one man’s visionary leadership: Founder and chief executive Thomas G. Hoback

By William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief 20 Railway Age March 2015

W

hen the history of 21st-century railroading is written sometime in the far future, the accomplishments of Thomas G. Hoback— Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the Indiana Rail Road Co.—will be chronicled as an example of the type of visionary leadership that made a notable impact on a resurgent industry. The story of this Indianapolis-based 500-mile regional railroad, with routes linking Chicago to Indianapolis, Louisville, Ky.,and central Illinois, will be studied closely by not only railroad historians, but by economists, transportation planners, logistics specialists, and marketers.

“Tom’s deep passion for the rail industry, fostered as a child and developed through six decades, has allowed him to take a broken-down branch line and convert it into a pillar of the industry,” loyal Indiana Rail Road employees say about their leader. “He has become known as an industry thought leader and tireless promoter of rail’s public benefits.” He is an example of how an executive can be a combination of “visionary entrepreneur and shrewd businessman, with great compassion for the community, responsible for myriad contributions to education, historic preservation, and the arts.”

Born 1947 in Peoria, Ill., Hoback grew up in nearby Chillicothe and then Ft. Madison, Iowa, where his father was a dispatcher for the Santa Fe Railway. His first railroad job was as a summertime track laborer for Santa Fe during college. He graduated from Golden Gate University in San Francisco with a Bachelor of Science degree in transportation and economics in 1969, and initially worked for rail shipper Foremost-McKesson and the Western Pacific Railroad before returning to the Midwest in 1977. At the Western Pacific, Hoback, an economic analyst, began to understand the inefficiencies of railroading at the time.

“We had just purchased 100 new mechanical refrigerator cars, to compete with the Southern Pacific,” he recalls. “I was shocked that we were getting only one turn per month out of our most expensive cars. On top of that, our rates were uneconomical. It was a real eye-opener.”

After a year as vice president marketing for short line Erie Western, Hoback joined Illinois Central Gulf as Director of Coal Marketing in 1978. He was recruited

by Senior Vice President Marketing Harry Bruce, who had worked with the young Hoback at Western Pacific.

It was at ICG where his entrepreneurial leanings began to blossom. Hoback joined TECO Energy (Tampa Electric) in 1983 so he could begin negotiating for purchase of ICG’s 110-mile Indianapolis-Sullivan, Ind., rail line, which ICG had unsuccessfully petitioned to abandon in 1977.

Fast-forward to March 18, 1986: Banking largely on the potential of one of the largest contiguous untapped coalfields in the nation—for which Peabody Energy had mineral rights—Hoback closed the purchase of, and began operating, INRD. He extended the railroad to Newton, Ill., in 1990.

INRD in 1986 may have been viewed by others as a questionable investment: There were literally thousands

of track defects on the 110-mile line, and a single coal customer with 12,000 annual carloads represented 92% of all business. But to Hoback, the long-neglected branch line and its 16 employees represented opportunity. Over the next 28 years, he personally oversaw the complete rebuilding of INRD from a decrepit branch line into a heavy-haul, high-tech regional railroad, investing more than $180 million in private capital, and transforming the operation into an industry leader in entrepreneurial business development and operations practices.

Gateways to greater growth

In 2006, in a major strategic move, INRD gained access to the Chicago and Louisville gateways with a winning bid for Canadian Pacific’s Indiana operations, extending its route system north to Chicago and east to the Ohio River ports at Louisville.

In 2013—a “transformational year”—Hoback took a major but calculated risk, convincing Class I partner CN to inaugurate all-rail intermodal service for Asia-Indiana trade, and investing more than $2 million in private capital to open an Indianapolis intermodal hub. The service exceeded its budgeted intermodal volumes for 2014. INRD also opened the Odon, Ind., Transload, strategically placed to reach under-served southwest Indiana companies, as well as a $7.5 million, state-of-the-art locomotive maintenance facility.

Major investment transformed INRD from a branch line to a heavy-haul regional.

Opposite: Hoback (right), with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

March 2015 Railway Age 21

TOM HOBACK

INRD today is a 500-mile system with 170,000 annual carloads, 182 employees, a 12% growth rate compounded annually over 28 years, and an increase in annual gross ton-miles of nearly 3,400%. More than 90% of the main line is 136-pound welded rail, with 29 miles under CTC. Coal, while growing, represents only 50% of revenue, because INRD’s intermodal and carload business continues to expand. With a sharp sense of political trends, Hoback

In 2016, INRD’s 30th year, $200 million in private capital will have been invested in the railroad since 1986. has led INRD on a multi-year traffic-diversification push that has paid off. Merchandise carloads represented 7% of INRD revenue in 1986. In 2013, nearly half of revenue was carload. Due to intermodal and more carload development, this is expected to increase in 2015 and beyond. In 2016, INRD’s 30th year, the railroad will reach $200 million in private capital investment since its inception. That’s more than 33 times its original purchase price.

INRD moved its two-millionth revenue carload of freight in the fourth quarter of 2011, an accomplishment

sit idle without idling

that helped earn it Railway Age’s Regional Railroad of the Year award in 2012.

NRD is also technology pioneer, hosting tests for a Cummins-supplied, EPA Tier 4 compliant QSK95powered locomotive, due to be completed this year.

While achieving all this, INRD has maintained an operating ratio in the low 60s and achieved revenue records for three consecutive years.

Commitment to the community

Hoback has always been committed to the betterment of the community. 2014 was the 25th year for INRD’s Santa Train. The railroad also donated $50,000 to help a local school stay open. Elected to the Indiana Historical Society board of trustees in 2002, Hoback completed a three-year term as chairman in 2011. He has a long-standing association with the Society, having cofounded the Midwest Railroad Research Center in 1997. He is also active on other boards and advisory committees, among them the board of directors of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library at the University of MissouriSt. Louis (serving on the editorial advisory board for Railroad History), and The Lexington Group in Transportation History, an informal group of academics,

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22 Railway Age March 2015

Tom hoback

“Building a contiguous railroad that adds value to each property works for us,” says Tom Hoback.

authors, professional railroaders, and historians. were hemorrhaging business. They were essentially regu“Building a contiguous railroad that adds value to each lated public utilities, where nothing ever happens. When property works for us,” Hoback says. “We’ve learned how partial deregulation occurred in 1980 under the Staggers to extract value from each piece. I’ve seen many smaller Act, many of the railroads didn’t want it, not just because properties absorbed into large carriers who are looking they were concerned about a loss of some antitrust exempmainly at linehaul service, and are not interested in regional tion, but because they really didn’t know how to compete customers. We’ve really proven that there is a role for in a free market. It was cultural paralysis.” regional railroads in the watershed surrounding Chicago.”

That cultural paralysis has given way “to an industry In his 46-year career, Hoback, who retires this year, where consolidation has allowed us to become much more has witnessed many changes. “I started when the railroads efficient,” Hoback notes. But more important, it is an were heavily regulated,” he says. “It was a corrosive enviindustry where entrepreneurial railroaders like the man ronment that too often supported a ‘can’t-do’ attitude. at the helm of the Indiana Rail Road can make a differRailroads were afraid that if they did something good for ence, not only for customers, employees, and investors, RA one customer, they would have to do it for others.

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March 2015 Railway Age 23

New name, expanded game plan

By Douglas John Bowen, Managing Editor

Take three small railroads, add acres of intermodal transfer capability, mix with marketing, and get ready for dynamic change in South Carolina’s key port city, courtesy of Palmetto Railways.

W

hat’s reflected by a name change? Plenty: a revamped organization of three area short lines, a new role as economic development counselor, and a focus on bolstering activity at the Port of Charleston, S.C., including intermodal as a key growth driver.

In just two years under its new name, Palmetto Railways has made its mark in the Palmetto State, earning it Railway Age’s 2015 Short Line of the Year award.

Palmetto Railways unified three properties, all under the umbrella of South Carolina Public Railways, which President 24 Railway Age March 2015

and CEO Jeffrey M. McWhorter observes was “creating a lot of confusion” on official levels, from a public viewpoint, and even among employees.

“A response you’d get on the street is, ‘Oh, you work at the port railroad,’” regardless of the actual railroad involved, McWhorter says, reflecting on his arrival at his current post as president in 2007.

Unification in 2013 solved the identity crisis and allowed Palmetto Railways to reorganize under three subdivisions: The Charleston Subdivision, the North Charleston Subdivision, and the Charity Church Subdivision.

“He has done a wonderful job of building the railroad and expanding its offerings,” says Mark Clinton, owner of Louisville, Ky.-based Millennium Rail Services, supplying Palmetto Railroad with signal products, replacement parts, and rebuild components.

The railroad currently employs about 63 employees, up significantly from 35 people (spread across three properties) seven years ago and from 46 as recently as early last year.

Staff includes a mechanical group of four employees, and an engineering group of six, covering maintenance and infrastructure needs.

Those needs are expanding as the railroad grows. Palmetto Railways recently added two locomotives to its fleet, for 12 locomotives in all. As well, last year the railroad completed adding 3,400 track-feet of capacity, replaced some 4,500 crossties in various locations, and upgraded two highway-rail grade crossings.

Roughly 125,000 carloads are moved across its rights-ofway, a total seemingly destined to grow. Palmetto Railways anticipates a 16% growth spurt in 2015, or approximately 140,000 carloads.

Palmetto Railways also offers locomotive repair and leasing services for its customers and other clients, which McWhorter hopes to expand. “We’ve not pursued that too aggressively, but the business is there,” he says. “We may be looking to expand, as well as [offer] car repair service,” in the near future.

Intermodal opportunity beckons

Palmetto Railways is an “enterprise agency” of the state of South Carolina, receiving no direct appropriations for operations. The short line interchanges with both CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., serving customers from outside its territory as well as some within the port area, including heavyweights such as BP Chemical and Nucor Steel, a subsidiary of Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor Corp. specializing in hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and coated steel coils. Other customers are well-known names to the railroad world: Siemens and General Electric.

Those companies, and others, can expect to benefit from development, now ongoing, of the 100-acre, $200 million Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF), which Palmetto Railways will own and operate (diagram below).

“We describe it as a hybrid on-dock/near dock facility,”

McWhorter says. “It will operate as on on-dock facility, so the drayage between the facilities will operate as an internal drayage, and won’t be out on public railroads and highways.”

Local political crosscurrents have put the disposition of other nearby parcels of the former 400-acre Charleston Navy Base in North Charleston in flux, but McWhorter says he expects Palmetto Railways, “after all is said and done, to have 150 acres available for development.” The railroad has received submittals from eight different development teams, all involving a mixed-use approach. “We’ve not decided on any one thing right now, but we hope for some type of mixed use of warehouses and, perhaps, distribution centers that are well-served,” McWhorter says.

The Port of Charleston, meanwhile, already handles postPanamax international container shipments, making it the No. 8 U.S. port measured by cargo volume. Dredging work will improve shipping capabilities still further, with work to increase Charleston Harbor to 52 feet by 2020.

ICTF is scheduled to begin operations in 2018, as is the nearby South Carolina Port Authority’s new marine container terminal immediately adjacent, with both expected to benefit significantly from improved port operations.

The ICTF’s design has minimized, if not eliminated, Palmetto Railways’s need to acquire additional rights-of-way to properly incorporate the facility into existing infrastructure. Plans call for equal access by CSX and Norfolk Southern through use of existing rights-of-way, reducing potential conflicts with adjacent neighborhoods.

McWhorter allows, “We have to reach an agreement with CSX; to date, we haven’t reached that agreement, but we continue discussions.” Palmetto Railways does have the option of an alternate route, using land it owns running through the “hospital district,” McWhorter notes, “but it is within a historic district. We’d like to avoid that, if possible.”

SECURE-ing a future

McWhorter is proud of Palmetto Railways’s safety record.

During 2013, the company had no lost time injuries, no FRA reportable derailments, and no human factor derailments. While all of 2014’s results haven’t yet been finalized, the railroad again “worked injury free,” and McWhorter says to his best knowledge the railroad last year extended its winning streak across the board.

On deck: 100 acres aiding ship-to-rail intermodalism.

March 2015 Railway Age 25

2015 SHORT LINE RAILROAD OF THE YEAR

He attributes that record in large part to the company motto of being SECURE, an acronym denoting Safety, Efficiency, Customer service Requirements, and Expenses. Palmetto Railways complies strictly with FRA and OSHA regulations using SECURE as its template for its safety record.

As for the first “E” of SECURE, “Efficiency is key because it has multiple meanings,” McWhorter observes.

“We not only want to create efficiencies across the company; we want to maximize efficiencies so that we are better positioned for growth.” That includes Palmetto Railways’ assumption of operations this year that currently are leased to other parties, McWhorter says.

No mystery surrounds the drive for customer service, McWhorter says.

“We want to have the right car in the right place at the right time,” he says, in orderDEE notRailage to justAdmeet customer Final Proof2_PDF2.pdf expectations, but exceed them.

Controlling expenses involves offering technical assistance to existing and potential customers, not just in the private sector but also including local, regional, and state authorities.

Improvement Financing loan program (RRIF). The railroad seeks to acquire three electric, rail-mounted, high capacity wide-span cantilever gantry cranes, but notes such cranes available

”We hope for some type of mixed use of warehouse and, perhaps, distribution centers that are well-served” by Charleston’s Intermodal Container Transfer Facility.

Services such as locomotive repair and consulting advice are also part of Palmetto Railways’s income spectrum.

On the investment side of the expense equation, Palmetto Railways last January submitted a 36-page waiver request to the FRA, related to the agency’s Buy8:26:11 America policy applicable 8/17/2011 AM to the Railroad Rehabilitation and

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on the market are manufactured only outside the U.S. McWhorter doesn’t plan on limiting the railroad’s potential to its physical reach. “We plan to continue to grow our business beyond the confines of the port terminal fence line,” he says, to serve an ever-larger slice of the Palmetto State—and beyond. RA

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2015 SHORT LINE RAILROAD OF THE YEAR

Port of Charleston leverages rail links FOR FUTURE GROWTH PLANS South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA) is counting on Palmetto Railways to play a key role in the expansion of international, intermodal goods movement in the post-Panamax age.

The expansion of the Panama Canal will double the canal’s capacity, allowing for vessels up to 13,000 TEUs to transit through. The expansion project is currently 84% done with completion expected in 2016.

According to SCPA President and CEO James Newsome, rail connectivity is a key factor in SCPA’s $1.3 billion capital plan to help meet demand 20 and even 30 years from now.

The Port of Charleston, which has the deepest water in the South Atlantic, can already accommodate post-Panamax ships, boasting channel depths up to 47 feet.

More than 30 of the world’s top ocean carriers, including CMA CGM, call at the port, making the Port of Charleston a serious competitor to nearby ports in Jacksonville, Fla., and Norfolk, Va. Ranked eighth in the nation in terms of cargo volume, the Port of Charleston generated $26.2 billion in export activity in 2013, up from $13.4 billion in 2004.

Some of the ports top export markets include China, Canada and Germany.

Those foreign markets are on the mind of Palmetto Railways President Jeffrey M. McWhorter, who says the company’s advisory services help attract and keep business customers. “We act as a true consultant in any rail project,” he says. “We are designing our rail facilities at

the port to handle the growth we anticipate over the next 40 years.”

The Port of Charleston began its existence as the premier option for North American trade even before the U.S. emerged as nation.

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March 2015 Railway Age 27

Thrice is nice

Idle no more: Electric plugs throughout Reading & Northern territory minimize engine idling.

Treat customers right. Trust your employees. Work with partners.

Go get business. Reading & Northern sticks to a three-decade formula of success.

By Douglas John Bowen, Managing Editor, and William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief

28 Railway Age March 2015

Adjusting to changing markets

R&N in 2014 set new company records for carload volume and revenue during the calendar year. It surpassed its previous carload record, set in 2011, with a 3.2% increase over 2013 levels to 24,365—“especially impressive considering the 21% decline in the anthracite coal unit train business, which fell due to severe price competition from foreign coal producers,” the railroad said, extending a decline evident since at least 2013.

And for 2015? “We have a chance for 20% revenue growth in 2015, and that may be conservative,” says R&N CEO and owner Andy Muller, Jr. R&N’s commodity base is extensive as the railroad handles goods from more than 50 customers in nine eastern Pennsylvania counties. “Our merchandise business, which consists of a diverse mixture of commodities including wood

Philip Banks

O

ne wonders if, for Reading & Northern Railroad Co., “R and N” might also stand for “Relentless and Noteworthy.”

The constant energy and effort emanating from the Port Clinton, Pa.-based regional railroad continues to garner honors even as staff insists such awards are benchmarks on the way to something better, not laurels to rest on. R&N last year was honored with a 2014 American Short Line & Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) Marketing Award.

“We maintain an entrepreneurial spirit and vision even though we’ve grown to be a successful railroad,” says R&N President Wayne Michel.

Such growth and success accounts for adding Railway Age’s 2015 Regional Railroad of the Year award to its trophy case, the third time R&N has been so honored, as it was in 2002 and 2011.

pulp, paper, metals, food products, plastics, forest products, chemicals, and minerals, comprises close to 80% of Reading & Northern’s total traffic,” the railroad notes.

Muller insists on customer service, highlighted by a pledge to R&N’s customer base, which has resulted in R&N meeting a goal of serving all customers within a two-hour service window 99% of the time. “We try to do everything morally, ethically; we strive to treat the customer right,” Muller says.

Hiring the right kind of people is key, Muller notes.

“We hire 100% for attitude. I don’t care where you went to school; I care about loyalty and commitment that’s shown. We hire for that, then you pay people” what that strength is worth, he says.

That philosophy has worked well. “Obviously we could not have achieved this growth and exceptional customer service without the hard work of the 180 plus men and women in the Reading & Northern family,” says Michel, noting an increase of 30 employees since 2011.

“We hire; we don’t contract as a general rule,” Michel adds, “and we don’t work people more than 40, 45 hours a week.” Combined with an “entrepreneurial perspective,” that enables R&N “to react quickly to changing market conditions . . . we are able to invest quickly in new facilities for ourselves and new customers to the railroad. These new facilities and new customers enable our company to grow our business. And our commitment to excellent service keeps our existing customers happy.”

As one example, Michel points to the development of new transloading facilities at Cressona and Penobscot, Pa., that “have been very successful and resulted in substantial business growth on the railroad,” and prompted ASLRRA’s 2014 Marketing Award, the second time the railroad has been so honored in the past five years. A year earlier, R&N opened the two new rail terminals to handle inbound metals for local customers. “These new facilities took significant truck traffic off the roads and helped support the local industries depending on this business, which employ 1,200 people in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties,” Muller says.

Reading & Northern’s sister company, Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway, also had a record year, accommodating more than 72,000 visitors on its many steam- or dieselpowered excursion trains.

friendly soy grease to the locomotive and car wheels to reduce the friction between the wheels and the rail,” the company says. R&N staff continuously keep track of alternative fuels technology being explored within the rail industry.

Adds R&N Executive Vice President Operations Tyler Glass, “On our higher density lines we brought in a contractor to profile the rail head, which enhances the ride of the wheels on top of the rail, which in turn also reduces the drag.”

R&N also adheres to infrastructure conservation as an energy approach. “Since 1983, we’ve never torn track up we’ve resisted the temptation for quick money through selling scrap, and kept our assets in at least passable condition,” Muller says. Increasing traffic now makes that long-term investment seem sound.

R&N’s environmental footprint efforts extend beyond the rails and the rail mode. Since 2013, R&N has offered a $5,000 electric car rebate to employees purchasing such vehicles, added to various federal and state packages, while offering free electric car charging privileges at its charging station in Port Clinton. So far, only three R&N employees have taken advantage, but Muller says “we’ll do it again,” while acknowledging, “Americans don’t dive into technology the way you think they would.”

Cooperation among the players

Opportunity exists for R&N with Norfolk Southern’s planned $192.6 million purchase of Canadian Pacific’s Delaware & Hudson Line, announced last November, which cuts across New York’s Southern Tier and through Pennsylvania, including R&N’s neighborhood.

“NS has been a terrific partner for us,” CEO Muller says.

“When we have a business opportunity, they help make us work. We’ve never lost a customer (through partnership efforts). We don’t know how this [purchase] is going to play out, but we think we’re in the catbird seat.”

R&N customers also have proved to be able partners.

Muller notes an effort by Allentown, Pa.-based Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. to obtain a grant to fix R&N track that only Air Products moves require, and then only a few times

Energy in green

U.S. energy issues, laden with volatile debate, may swirl around any transport mode, but R&N is committed to run as “green” a railroad property as it can, benefitting both its bottom line and its environment.

The commitment of course includes its locomotive fleet, fully equipped through in-house retrofit work with heating systems to minimize engine idling in the winter. “We put electric plugs out along the railroad; anywhere we park, we just plug the locomotive in,” Muller quips, adding, “I don’t see anything idling when I come on this railroad. “ Locomotive engineers receive “best train handling practices” to maximize efficiency. Right-of-way maintenance include “several new rail greasers that apply environmentally March 2015 Railway Age 29

2015 REGIONAL RAILROAD OF THE YEAR

a year. Pennsylvania awarded the grant, intended to upgrade track speeds to 10 mph, which Air Products forwarded to R&N. R&N added its own money and upgraded six miles to 40 mph passenger, 30 mph freight speeds. An added benefit: “Now there’s no sitting in place for Norfolk Southern or [in the past] CP,” Muller observes. “I believe the better my service is to a Class I, with no bottleneck in place, the better it is for all. That’s going to be a very profitable improvement in the future.”

R&N’s direct dealings with government entities have resulted in a mixed bag. In 1997, R&N approached Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation for permission to build a new bridge, adjacent to an existing one over the Lehigh River, and it received the go-ahead and a $14 million grant—in 2014.

“It’s hard to convince governments when you’re a smaller railroad,” Muller says, though the improvement will “allow progressive moves between Reading and Scranton that knocks two hours off trip times,” and eliminate a switchback reverse move.

R&N and NS also are cooperating with CAN DO, a Hazelton, Pa.-based economic development authority, to facilitate R&N’s access to Humboldt Industrial Park North, expected to occur in January 2017. The prize for R&N: 5,000 carloads of merchandise annually, or a boost of better

than 20% from 2014’s record carload level. “It’s going to be a big thing,” Michel says.

Evolving rail landscape

Other issues have been more problematic. In December 2013, R&N filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Rail Authority (PNRRA), based in Scranton, Pa., from proceeding with what R&N is calling a “no-bid” contract for rail service in nearby Lackawanna and Monroe counties. “The Authority refused to even consider our request to make a bid to be the operator,” R&N said at

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the time, instead renewing a contract with the existing operator for another five years.

Delaware Lackawanna Railroad Co. has operated over 88 miles of rail right-of-way in four eastern Pennsylvania counties, under contract with the PNRRA, since 1993; its current contract expires in 2015.

“We realize that given an open process with fair bidding that there may be others who win the right to operate,” said Michel. “However, we know taxpayers and shippers will be

Norfolk Southern’s planned purchase of CP’s Delaware & Hudson Line offers R&N a big opportunity. better off as a result of this process and we will have had a fair opportunity to participate.”

Muller stresses that Pennsylvania regional authorities such as PNRRA “did a wonderful thing in the 1980s; they literally saved these railroads.

“But now federal money and state money are competing with us every day. I’m surrounded by county-owned railroads,” Muller observes. We all compete for [frac] sand,

and I have no problem competing, but if you compete against the government, you’re going to lose.”

Adds Michel, “We’d like the government to sell the freight franchise. If government also wants to operate a passenger franchise in the future, Scranton to New York [often discussed as an Amtrak or NJ Transit operating option] that’s fine, and we’ll be glad, even thrilled, to cooperate. We believe in passenger.” But, he says, “Let us bid.”

Both Muller and Michel promise more changes, more growth, are to come. Says Michel, “We’re still hungry.

We will always grow the business.” RA

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Harsco Rail’s TRT-909, in action replacing rail.

Don’t reface it, replace it

By MISCHA WANEK-LIBMAN, Engineering Editor

Complete track renewal work calls for large machines that offer custom solutions.

W

hen railroads turn to large track renewal machines, they need equipment that offers versatility in both what can be accomplished and how it gets accomplished, for example, being able to work with various types of crossties. Yet, the machines still need the ability to customize their work, toward a solution unique to a given customer.

High-quality track

Harsco Rail’s TRT-909 track renewal system can replace both rails simultaneously, remove and replace crossties (concrete, 36 Railway Age March 2015

pre-plated wood, or steel), pull and reclaim spikes, and distress the rails using induction heat, as well as remove and collect rail anchors.

Steve Byers, senior director of sales for Harsco Rail, says, “Development of the TRT was based on 25 years’ experience designing, manufacturing, and operating track renewal systems. Customer input was critical to the success of the project; not only did a Class I railroad steer the design process, it challenged us to do more, better, faster, and with added safety.”

The TRT-909 went into service in 2005. According to Byers, since then, more than 1,700 miles of track has been renewed.

TRACK RENEWAL

A Plasser American WM 40/PK turnout renewal system is designed to handle “large and unwieldy, yet sensitive” components.

“During this time, more than 30 improvements have been implemented to improve productivity, enhance safety, and reduce cost. One of the most important improvements was the Induction Rail Heater. With this system we can heat the rail to a neutral temperature without an open flame,” says Byers.

In addition to the Induction Rail Heater, Harsco points to the machine’s ability to apply and remove McKay rail fasteners, as well as other fastener types, and a spike puller capable of pulling eight spikes simultaneously as important innovations.

“The primary advantage of using the TRT-909 is the safety and efficiency derived from renewing rail, ties, and ballast in one automated pass. Material handling is an important element of any track renewal consideration, along with reduced labor, improvements in safety and track quality, and reduced future maintenance,” says Byers. “While each machine is tailored to a customer’s specification, we see opportunities on new machines to increase productivity, add automation, improve handling of excess ballast, and adapt to new ties and fastening systems.”

Machine versatility

Plasser American Corp. offers the SMD 80 series of machines for track renewal and track laying, as well as the WM 40/PK turnout renewal system.

Plasser American developed its turnout renewal system to handle what the company calls a large and unwieldy, yet sensitive track component. The company says utilizing a mechanized renewal and laying technique for turnouts enables fast and high-quality installation, without the need to worry about circumstances, such as a tight workspace.

According to Plasser, “The mechanized transport and installation of turnouts enables a wide variety of maneuvers of the complete turnouts or assembled turnout sections.

The tasks of loading and unloading, lateral transport to the track, and also longitudinal transport on the track and in the work site are performed by the turnout relaying machine. This guarantees that the precise geometry of the pre-assembled turnout is retained until it is installed, because this initial quality of the turnout has a considerable influence on its service life.”

March 2015 Railway Age 37

TRACK RENEWAL

Harsco Rail’s TRT-909’s development included Class I railroad input

On the subject of track renewal, Plasser’s SMD 80 is capable of exchanging crossties and rail, as well as new track construction.

“Machines of the SMD 80 series represent the state of the art in a track relaying concept, which excels in terms of performance, flexibility and cost-efficiency. The machine set has been built according to the modular design system, which allows tailor-made solutions to be provided for each specific field of application,” says Plasser. The system’s modular components include a relaying machine with bogies and a crawler track, a power unit, and a self-propelled gantry crane to supply new crossties and take away old ones.

Crosstie variety accounted for

The company says the SMD 80 series was developed with an awareness of short track possessions and designed its machines to take up and install a variety of crossties

38 Railway Age March 2015

including wood, concrete, and steel. When machines are renewing track, it is possible to exchange the rails or to re-install the previously used rails.

Plasser points out the SMD system’s crawler track, which drives the machine forward during operation, guaranteeing high tractive power independent of the weather conditions.

The machines of the SMD series can also be equipped with a regulating chain and transverse conveyor belts, which provide a smoothed out ballast bed. The regulating chain also allows the possibility to lower the new track compared to the old track geometry and of working near station platforms and on boxed-in ballast.

“A special advantage of the SMD technique is that the individual work units are placed in position concurrently at the start of the work site so that no ‘plough gap’ can occur,” says Plasser.

Plasser adds that when working on relaying track, the SMD

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TRACK RENEWAL

80 pushes the tie cars ahead of itself and when laying new track, the direction of work is reversed with the tie cars being pulled by the machine. The company notes the conversion between types of operation takes little time.

“SMD 80 stands for a track renewal and track laying technique [that offers] the greatest possible cost-efficiency

[and] highest work output, even under difficult conditions. The flexible SMD system allows new functions to be integrated into the construction, expanding it even further,” says Plasser Seven units, one system

For the WM 40/PK, “the high standards required for switch laying were

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40 Railway Age March 2015

SPEED PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY

taken into account in the development of the switch laying machines of the WM series,” Plasser says.

The SES (Switch & Panel Exchange System) WM 40 consists of seven units: one WRW carrier vehicle, two PA turnout lifting units, and four WTW turnout transport cars. The WRW carrier vehicle serves to transport turnout sections and track panels as well as one of the two turnout lifting units to the work site. This is designed with two 2-axle trucks or “bogies” (one axle per truck is powered hydraulically), two auxiliary undercarriages, and two powered crawler tracks. The trucks are of a laterally displaceable design “to ensure exact track gauge when placed on the track and precise alignment for travel on track,” Plasser says.

Here’s how it works, as Plasser describes it: “The turnout sections or track panels are picked up and laid using both turnout lifting units (gantry units). The lifting stresses are distributed uniformly onto the turnout so that its geometry is not altered by sagging, twisting, or bending. Within the lifting units, the turnout sections can be displaced by 72 inches (1.830 mm) longitudinally and 80 inches (2.030 mm) laterally. If the turnout is longer than the lifting frame, extensions are placed at the front and the rear as supports to prevent any undesired bouncing or twisting of the turnout.

One of the two turnout lifting units is fitted with self-propelled crawler tracks. Both lifting units can load themselves onto the turnout transport cars.

“The four WTW turnout transport cars are equipped with a hydraulic slewing loading bridge with which the turnout can be rotated so that the permissible loading gauge is not exceeded during transport. Two of the four WTW’s in this system are fitted with diesel-hydraulic self-propulsion that allows the vehicle itself as well as other vehicles in the system formation to be maneuvered in the work site area. Both the turnout lifting units and the turnout transport cars can be controlled by radio remote control, in each case by only one operator.” RA

RAILWAY AGE CONFERENCE & EXPO

JUNE 17 -18 Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago, IL

EXPLORE THE CHALLENGES, ISSUES, AND TRENDS AFFECTING THE NORTH AMERICAN RAIL MARKET REGISTER TODAY

RAILWAYAGE.COM/INSIGHTS 212-620-7205

TOPICS INCLUDE: • Is there enough rail capacity to handle America’s growing economy?

• Where does Wall Street see the growing railway business headed?

• What is the future of crude by rail, as safety concerns escalate and CBR traffic fluctuates?

• The changing face of rail regulation—where are we headed in the current political landscape?

• How can the supplier/customer relationship be improved?

• Where does passenger rail fit into the overall picture?

• Capital investment strategies for infrastructure—how much more is needed?

AN INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE AMONG TOP-LEVEL EXECUTIVES, RAILWAY AGE’S EXPERIENCED EDITORS, AND ATTENDEES

No slowdown for FasTracks Want proof that American cities away from the coastlines can commit to passenger rail and an auto-alternatives future?

Look to Denver.

By Douglas John Bowen, Managing Editor

42 Railway Age March 2015

Aggressive LRT growth

RTD began operating its first rail service in 1994 with the debut of its 5.3-mile Central Corridor light rail line, now the spine of a much-larger LRT system.

Denver’s current 48 miles of LRT, extending mostly south and west from Denver Union Station, thus shares honors with another Rocky Mountains rail star, Salt Lake City, which has grown roughly 45 miles of LRT produced through its own Frontlines program. Frontlines regional (“commuter”) rail’s 89 route-miles also roughly matches Denver’s own 88.

RTD’s growth can be seen favorably even against the stellar progress of far-larger Los Angeles, where Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) operates 70.3 miles of LRT route, along with about 23 miles of rapid transit (subway) service, cooperating with Metrolink regional rail service.

All images: Regional Transportation District

D

enver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) may be guilty of modesty.

RTD may claim, justifiably, that its FasTracks program has moved with namesake alacrity to deliver rail—mostly light rail transit—to serve Colorado’s state capital in slightly more than a decade’s time.

Often unheralded is the scope of the program, offering ongoing construction and implementation over an entire metropolitan area since voters approved a $4.7 billion debt package in 2004 eyeing installation of 122 miles of passenger rail right-of-way.

But five FasTracks projects, including the high-profile rail route linking Denver Union Station with Denver International Airport, are scheduled to open this year, bringing massive expansion to RTD’s regional reach, which began modestly in 1972 by employing and organizing bus operations.

Expanding passenger rail in the greater Denver area LONGMONT Downtown Longmont

ERIE

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Boulder Junction

LOUISVILLE

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Louisville

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US 36•McCaslin

144th

SUPERIOR

BROOMFIELD

US 36•Flatiron

US 36•Broomfield 124th•Eastlake

N

US 36•Church Ranch

NORTHGLENN

WESTMINSTER

112th

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ENGLEWOOD Englewood

CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE

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Oxford•City of Sheridan

GREENWOOD VILLAGE

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Littleton•Downtown

Dry Creek

LITTLETON

CENTENNIAL

County Line

Littleton•Mineral Lincoln

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Lone Tree Town Center RidgeGate Parkway

rtd-denver.com Current Lines

Sky Ridge

PARKER

HIGHLANDS RANCH

Future Lines C Line D Line E Line F Line H Line W Line Free MallRide Free MetroRide

A Line – East Rail Line B Line – Northwest Rail Line G Line – Gold Line H Line Extension L Line – Central Rail Ext/Loop N Line – North Metro Rail Line R Line – I-225 Rail Line Flatiron Flyer (Bus Rapid Transit)

Future Construction Station Union Station

March 2015 Railway Age 43

DENVER

RTD’s six LRT lines, identified by letter, are credited by many with generating transit-oriented development (TOD) not only in Denver but in the city’s numerous suburban sisters. TOD has become a hot issue for many suburbs whose LRT station park-and-ride facilities have become saturated due to high demand.

A “Transit Oriented Denver” plan oversees neighborhoods surrounding existing rail stations in Denver itself, as well as stations set to open this year. The plan also includes Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) stations.

Electric service looms large

Denver RTD also is very likely to become the first North American transit authority west of Chicago to oversee electric regional passenger (or “commuter”) rail service.

Union Station’s historic facade masks a massive upgrade.

Last November RTD welcomed its first Hyundaiagencies. RTD has suggested, in fact, that such partnerships Rotem electric multiple-unit (EMU) consist of four may be the only feasible way to advance big-budget items, cars, the first of 66 cars to eventually be deployed on four particularly as federal funding support becomes more problines, three of which are set to open in 2016. lematic in the future.

Of the new lines, the 22.8-mile East Rail Line probably Notwithstanding such ambiguity, two of RTD’s FasTracks has the highest profile, linking Union Station to Denver projects, totaling $257 million, are included in President International Airport with proposed 15-minute frequencies.

Five additional midpoint stations will be included on the line. Obama’s proposed fiscal year 2016 budget, with some industry observers suggesting prospects for surviving The first 13 miles of the North Metro Rail Line is schedcongressional scrutiny remain fairly positive, control of uled to open in 2018. both houses by the Republican Party notwithstanding. The RTD in late 2013 awarded a $343 million contract to proposed federal funds include $92 million to aid extending Graham, Balfour Beatty, Hamon Constructors for constructhe Southeast Rail Extension LRT some 2.3 miles along tion of the electrified line.

Interstate 25. Four private consortia are competing to Dubbed the North Metro line, it will run from 124th complete this $207 million extension, expected to be open Avenue south to Denver Union Station. The contract team is in 2019. charged with completing work on the electrified line’s first Another payment of $165 million would assist funding the phase by January 2018.

East Rail Line to Denver International, and the Gold Line Two other regional rail lines are expected to begin service between Arvada and Wheat Ridge, Colo., as well as a third next year in addition to the East Rail Line serving Denver rail route between Denver Union Station and Westminster, International Airport: the Northwest Rail to Westminster Station; and the Gold Line to Arvada and Wheat Ridge, Colo. part of the Northwest Rail Line.

Meanwhile, Denver Transit Partners has earned considerAll meet at Union Station. able trust, and not just from RTD. On Feb. 6, 2015, the Denver Transit Partners (DTP) is the private-sector Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) concessionaire that will operate the regional service under recognized Denver Transit Partners’ work for Eagle P3, quala 34-year contract with RTD. ifying it for the Star Voluntary Protection Program (SVPP).

Hopes for extending the Northwest Rail Line as far as Less than 1% of all workplaces governed by OSHA are Boulder, Colo., for now have been tabled, leading rail critics accepted into SVPP. to question the entire FasTracks program.

Put all together, RTD hopes that by 2020 it can adequately Eagle P3 drives work service a metropolitan area of 2.8 million people, comprised RTD’s rail growth in recent years has been shepherded by of 40 municipalities in six counties along with two city/ Eagle P3, a public-private partnership generating $2.2 billion county jurisdictions, with 122 miles of rail right-of-way in capital projects comprised of federal funding, RTD sales supplemented by bus services. tax bonds, and private equity from Denver Transit Partners, RTD claims FasTracks has generated more than $5 billion a joint venture led by Fluor Corp. into the Denver-area economy and has created 13,000 fullRTD’s commitment to public-private partnerships is time jobs. But perhaps more important in the longer term, extensive, and while such an option has been employed by the agency has offered a template for other U.S. cities to other U.S. transit properties since at least the 1990s, RTD’s ponder if they hope to implement a 21st century transportabig buy-in may prove to be the model for other similar-sized tion approach deviating from “more of the same.” RA 44 Railway Age March 2015

I’m looking for some insight on Positive Train Control.

I’m a communications consultant and want to work with railroads.

Can you help me get started?

I’m seeking information about companies that manufacture track machines.

I’d like to inquire about general rail industry traffic trends.

On-DemanD access TO TOp Rail expeRTs

I need information on the market for freight rail wayside and onboard fault detection systems.

I’m seeking information about companies that manufacture locomotives.

I’m looking for some guidance on the tank car market and safety regulations.

I’m interested in becoming a supplier for liquefied natural gas components and require some guidance.

Railway Age has assembled a world-class collection of experts on a wide range of subjects in the world of rail, to get the answers that are important to Railway Age readers. This new paid service, The Railway Age Expert Network, offers you access to 27 experts on a broad range of rail topics.

Ask your rail questions at bit.ly/raexperts

People

Meetings

High profile Thomas J. Spearing III, of Hill International’s Marlton, N.J., office, has been promoted to Regional President (Americas) with Hill’s Project Management Group, in charge of all of Hill’s project management operations in North America and South America. Spearing, who rejoined Hill in 2007, has more than 25 years of operational, strategic, and business development experience in the construction industry.

Prior to this promotion, he had been President of Hill’s Project Management Group (Americas) since 2009, where he managed Spearing Hill International Hill’s project management operations throughout the U.S. and Canada. Spearing earned his B.B.A. in computer and information science from Temple University, his B.S. in construction management and his B.S. in civil engineering from Spring Garden College, and his M.S. in management from Rosemont College.

April 28-May 1

CLOQUET TERMINAL RAILROAD— Bruce B. Baker promoted to General Manager.

METRA—John A. Milano named Deputy Executive Director for Administration.

VIA RAIL CANADA—Susan Williams appointed General Manager for eastern Canada.

SUPPLIERS Fecon, Inc. named Joe Cox Northeast Regional Manager.

Gannett Fleming named Dave Thomas Director of Strategic Initiatives.

Greenbrier Cos. named Alejandro Centurion and Jim Sharp as Executive Vice Presidents. Brian Comstock appointed Senior Vice President.

Parsons Brinckerhoff named Josef Villa Senior Supervising Engineer in the New York office. Richard Fischer named New York City Area Manager, also based in New York. Christopher Bente named a Supervising GIS Planner in the Sacramento, Calif., office. Scot Sibert named a Senior Principal Technical Specialist in the Charlotte, N.C., office.

SYSTRA appointed Joseph Bonsignore, PE, Chief Engineer of SYSTRA USA. Joel Minch, PE, appointed Infrastructure Sector Manager.

46

Railway Age

March 2015

WAGO Corp. named Carlos Ruiz Regional Sales Manager, South Florida.

OBITUARY Georgetown Rail Equipment Co. (GREX) Founder and Chairman Emeritus Edwin de Steiguer “Ned” Snead, 85, died Jan. 22. Snead founded GREX in 1993, based on several patents for products he had developed, including ones for M/W systems such as the DumpTrain® and the Slot Train. In partnership with his father, E.B. Snead, Ned Snead launched Snead Research Laboratory in 1979 as the project development arm of Georgetown Railroad, the latter founded by E.B. Snead in 1958.

100 YEARS AGO in

(MARCH 1915) CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR EYES RAIL OWNERSHIP Gov. Johnson of California has started a movement for the purchase of the Western Pacific, now in the hands of receivers, by the state of California.

The governor is quoted as saying, “It is my idea that with California owning and operating a great transcontinental railroad, the state will always be assured of commercial freedom.” A memo to Congress requesting it to take action toward the purchase of the road by the federal government has been introduced in the House and Senate of the California legislature.

Railway Educational Bureau Track Safety Standards Part 213, Classes 1-5 Workshop, Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Tel.: 800-228-9670; Email: studentservices@sb-reb. com; Website: www. railwayeducationalbureau.com/ TrkInspWrkShp.html

May 6-7 Railway Age/Parsons NextGeneration Train Control Conference Key Bridge Marriott, Arlington, Va. Email: conferences@sbpub. com; Website: www.railwayage. com/nextgen

June 17-18 Railway Age Rail Insights Conference Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago, Ill. Email: conferences@sbpub.com; Website: www.railwayage.com/ railinsights

March 31-April 1 20th Annual AAR Research Review Hotel Elegante Conference & Event Center, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Tel.: 303-617-3300; Email: annual review@aar.com; Website: http://regonline.com/20thAnnual

April 13-15 AREMA Introduction to Practical Railway Engineering Seminar Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Tel.: 301-459-3200; Website:www.arema.org/ Seminars/index.aspx

Sept. 17-18 Railway Age Crude by Rail Conference Key Bridge Marriott, Arlington, Va. Email: conferences@sbpub. com; Website: www.railwayage. com/conferences

Products Railhead FRA-compliant LED headlight lets locomotives shine bright Railhead’s FRA-compliant locomotive LED headlight is now operating on more than 100 locomotives in the U.S. and abroad.

The headlight operates in both the headlight and ditchlight locations.

Railhead’s LED does not need to be tethered like other LED headlights do, which simplifies the installation process.

Its design incorporates military-grade LEDs, an icemelting heat sync, and patentpending circuit configuration, making Railhead’s headlight a long-lasting solution available on the market with a 3-year warranty.

Contact Railhead for more information on demo options; Website: www. railheadcorp.com.

Door defender Protection System from Holland Holland’s Door Defender™ Protection System has a rugged outdoor-grade polyethylene construction featuring a patent pending bumper profile that acts as a spring to absorb door impacts. Door Defender™ is entirely waterproof and has been impact-tested to 3,000 cycles in conditions as harsh as -40 F and +130 F. Included in the system is a “one size fits all” side post guard that stretches to cover nearly all autorack structural elements, as well as Holland’s nylon buttons with triple engaging lips. Holland has received SEFCC conditional approval.

For more information, contact Pamela Ten Hoven, Tel.: 708-3672987; Email: ptenhoven@hollandco. com. Or visit Holland’s website, www.hollandco.com.

W o r l d ’s L a r g e s t C r a n k s h a f t M a n u f a c t u r e r a n d R e - M a n u f a c t u r e r

H e r m i t a g e , PA U S A 1 6 1 4 8 Te l e p h o n e 1 - 7 2 4 - 3 4 7 - 0 2 5 0 w w w . E l l w o o d C r a n k s h a f t G r o u p . c o m March 2015 Railway Age 47

Track Safety Standards Part 213 Classes 1-5 Workshop April 28 - May 1, 2015 Council Bluffs, Iowa Instructor: Brad Hess

Products Lat-Lon introduces Connected Rail Yard

This 3.5 day course describes track defects and discusses in depth the FRA Track Safety Standards in 49 CFR, Part 213: Track Safety Standards (TSS) Class 1-5 with an interactive approach both in the classroom and in the field. Class 1, Short Line operators, and contractors will find this workshop valuable for those responsible for compliance with the FRA TSS. Upon completion of this course, attendees will have an introductory understanding of how to apply FRA TSS for inspecting track, recording defects, and taking necessary remedial action.

Emphasis during this course is placed on: FRA Qualification, Compliance, Railroad/Track Owner Responsibility, Class Specific Defects, Non Class Specific Defects, Turnout Inspections, Rail Defects, and Inspection Report Requirements.

Those attending will: • Learn track inspection techniques with special emphasis of turnouts.

• Learn how to measure track parameters in the field.

• Develop a clear understanding of the FRA Track Safety Standards and the FRA track inspection process.

Course outline: Track Safety Standards Part 213 Railroad/Track Owner Responsibility Track Components Track Structure Track Appliances Inspections Track, Switches, Crossings, Lift Assemblies, Inspections and Requirements, Automated Inspections (Concrete Ties) Special Inspections Inspection Record Requirements

For workshop registration or for more information call toll free, 800-228-9670, email: studentservices@sb-reb.com or visit www.railwayeducationalbureau.com.

48

Railway Age

March 2015

Lat-Lon’s Connected Rail Yard aggregates data from crew movements, locomotives, railcars, M/W equipment, fixed signals, derails, and foul point locations. Complete with rugged hardware and detailed software, it displays data on large monitors on a realistic satellite image with all moving assets.

A separate schematic shows active tracks, foul points, and derails, delivering new safety and efficiency tools quickly to dispatch teams.

Through Mesh technology, sensors installed on fixed objects within the yard pass data along like a bucket brigade, creating a network with multiple paths to an access point.

The Solar-Powered Access Point Unit (AP) contains a modem that uploads the data to secure servers and the train dispatcher screens.

A dispatcher’s in-office Tracks screen will reflect a switch or derail in the normal or diverging position, or unknown status in the form of a colored icon.

Foul points will highlight the track, to illuminate the ramification of the potential or complete blockage.

The satellite images screen, Real-Time, displays icons reflecting moving assets within the yard from stand-alone Lat-Lon units on railcars, locomotives, and other vehicles.

Crew personnel in the yard are monitored through individual tracking devices carried on their persons.

Custom reports can also be displayed to monitor asset alerts, weather, or watch of specific asset or location.

These two screens allow for a simple, unified location for status verification.

This not only generates a safer yard with crew awareness, but also gives train dispatchers a new means to increase throughput.

The custom build yard screens provide relevant real-time data at a lower overhead thanks to fewer modems required.

Contact Lat-Lon: 877-300-6566; www.lat-lon.com.

Ad Index Company

Phone #

Fax URL/Email address

Page #

Birmingham Rail & Locomotive

205-424-7245

205-424-7436

bhamrail@aol.com

15

Danella Rental Systems, Inc.

610-828-6200

610-828-2260

pbarents@danella.com

12

Diesel Electrical Equip.

219-922-1848

219-922-1849

dieseleqpt@aol.com

26

Dixie Precast

770-944-1930

770-944-9136

fbrown142@aol.com

11

Ellwood Crankshaft & Machine

724-347-0250

724-347-0254

ecgsales@elwd.com

47

Fabricated Metals

502-363-2625

502-363-2629

barbw@fabricatedmetals.com

11

FreightCar America

312-928-0850

312-928-0890

tbaun@freightcar.net

Gage Bilt, Inc.

586-226-1500

586-226-1505

solutions@gagebilt.com

16

Herzog Railroad Services, Inc.

816-233-9002

816-233-7757

tfrancis@hrsi.com

14

Hotstart

509-536-8667

509-534-4216 mfloyd@kimhotstart.com

J.B.S. Cranes & Accessories

724-941-1433

724-941-9784

LORAM

763-478-6014

763-478-2221 sales@loram.com

40

LTK Engineering Services

215-641-8826

215-542-7676

tfurmaniak@ltk.com

16

Penn Machine Co.

412-279-4460

412-279-4465

pmcsales@pennmach.com

27

RJ Corman Railroad Group

800-611-7245

859-885-7804

www.rjcorman

31

Railhead Corp.

800-235-1782

708-844-5559

jdonnan@railheadcorp.com

C2

Railquip Inc

770-458-4157

770-458-5365

sales@railquip.com

30

Railway Educational Bureau, The

402-346-4300

402-346-1783

bbrundige@sb-reb.com

RailWorks

866-905-7245

952-469-1926 jrhansen@railworks.com

32

Rio Grande Chemical, Ltd.

956-686-2221

956-686-8290

david.bertram@rgcx.com

26

S & C Distribution Co.

708-396-1755

708-396-1754

info@sandcco.com

15

Siemens Industry, Inc.

412-944-6533

Strato

732-317-5406

9

22

jb@jbscranes.com

3

33, 48, C3

amanda.weir@siemens.com

732-981-1222 korozco@stratoinc.com

5 23

Thermo-Omega-Tech

732-996-8216

msorrentino@slicecommunications.com 13

TTX Company

312-606-1450

felix.castillo@ttx.com

Wi-Tronix

888-948-7664

630-679-9954 cjasmin@wi-tronix.com

C4

ZMAX Micro-Lubricant

704-455-3270

704-454-1377

38

7

cajohnson@zmax.com

The Advertisers Index is an editorial feature maintained for the convenience of readers. It is not part of the advertiser contract and Railway Age assumes no responsibility for the correctness.

Advertising Sales MAIN OFFICE Jonathan Chalon, Publisher 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7224 Fax: (212) 633-1863 jchalon@sbpub.com AL, AR, IN, KY, LA, MI, MS, OH, OK, TN, TX Emily Guill 20 South Clark Street, Suite 1910 Chicago, IL 60603 (312) 683-5021 eguill@sbpub.com CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, NC, PA, RI, SC, VT, VA, WV, Canada – Quebec and East, Ontario Mark Connolly 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7260 Fax: (212) 633-1863 mconnolly@sbpub.com

AK, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, KS, MN, MO, MT, NE, NM, ND, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, WY, Canada – AB, BC, MB, SK Heather Disabato 20 South Clark Street, Suite 1910 Chicago, IL 60603 (312) 683-5026 Fax: (312) 683-0131 hdisabato@sbpub.com The Netherlands, Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, North Germany, Middle East, South America, Africa (not South), Far East (Excluding Korea /China/India), All Others, Tenders Louise Cooper International Area Sales Manager The Priory, Syresham Gardens Haywards Heath, RH16 3LB United Kingdom +44-1444-416368 Fax: +44-(0)-1444-458185 lc@railjournal.co.uk

Scandinavia, Spain, Southern Germany, Austria, Korea, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe Baltic States, Recruitment Advertising Julie Richardson International Area Sales Manager The Priory, Syresham Gardens Haywards Heath, RH16 3LB United Kingdom +44-1444-416368 Fax: +44-(0)-1444-458185 jr@railjournal.co.uk Italy, Italian-speaking Switzerland Dr. Fabio Potesta Media Point & Communications SRL Corte Lambruschini Corso Buenos Aires 8 V Piano, Genoa, Italy 16129 +39-10-570-4948 Fax: +39-10-553-0088 info@mediapointsrl.it

Japan Katsuhiro Ishii Ace Media Service, Inc. 12-6 4-Chome, Nishiiko, Adachi-Ku Tokyo 121-0824 Japan +81-3-5691-3335 Fax: +81-3-5691-3336 amkatsu@dream.com CLASSIFIED, PROFESSIONAL & EMPLOYMENT Jeanine Acquart 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7211 Fax: (212) 633-1325 jacquart@sbpub.com

March 2015 Railway Age 49

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Available For Lease ◆ 3,600 cu. ft. Open Top Hoppers. 45 degree slopes for aggregate, coke, coal, etc. ◆ Box Cars – 286K Gross Rail Load, 60’ 9” inside length, 12’ Plug doors. ◆ Box Cars – 60’, 100-ton cars equipped with interior load dividers, plug doors and cushioned underframes.

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For additional information and pricing, please contact John Goodwin phone (605) 582-8318 e-mail jgoodwin@mwrail.com www.carmathinc.com

EDNA A. RICE, EXECUTIVE RECRUITER, INC (713) 667-0406 FAX (713) 667-1651 Web address: www.ednarice.com Email: resume@ednarice.com

EDNA A. RICE, President 6750 West Loop South Suite 735 Bellaire, Texas 77401-4111

Available for Lease

RAILWAY AGE MARKETPLACE SALES

3600 cu ft Open Top Hopper Cars 100 ton Automated/Manual Ballast Cars 4480 cu ft Aluminum Rotary Open Top Gons

Jeanine Acquart • jacquart@sbpub.com

Contact: Tom Monroe: 415-616-3472 Email: tmonroe@atel.com

Ph: 212/620-7211 Fax: 212/633-1165

Are you a railroad or supplier searching for job candidates? visit http://bit.ly/railjobs THE RAILWAY AGE JOB BOARD connects candidates and opportunities in the rail industry.

To place a job posting, contact: Jeanine Acquart • 212 620-7211 • jacquart@sbpub.com March 2015 Railway Age 51

Financial edge DAVID NAHASS

Taking charge of crude by rail safety

F

ebruary saw a tough time for tank cars: Three derailments in a weeks’ worth of days have refocused the spotlight on the risks of crude by rail (CBR) and are going to add some additional intensity to the debate about how the final specification for the tank car used for hauling CBR should ultimately look.

Luckily, the number of injuries and fatalities were low, but one look at the fireball eruption in West Virginia and you will see why this issue will remain front and center until these accidents stop drawing headlines.

The debate is further complicated by the fact that so many of the cars included in these derailments were designed to meet the CPC-1232 specification, the standard to which CBR tank railcars have been built from 2011 until the DOT got more heavily involved. There is (or at least was) a strong contingent that believed that the CPC-1232 car was sufficient to provide defense against the type of explosion that just occurred.

Is that really the heart of the matter?

Take a close look at the lead news story on p. 10, written by Contributing Editor David Thomas, who notes something that was widely pronounced during the aftermath of the accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec: “Carbuilders themselves advise that neither the CPC-1232 nor its yet-to-be-approved official successor could withstand the forces of high-speed derailments or collisions.” Thomas advises that the real culprit (again a widely raised concern) is the level of combustible gases (e.g. natural gas liquids, methane, butane) in Bakken crude oil. These flammable gases likely caused the intense fireball seen in West Virginia.

The discussion on car design reminded me of a blog written in January 2014 by my “Financial Edge”

52

Railway Age

March 2015

predecessor Tony Kruglinski. Discussing the potential for long-term risk from CBR accidents, Tony noted, “What concerns me is … that if the rail industry doesn’t do something … to take control of its own destiny with CBR rail safety, others, perhaps state, local, or federal legislators or regulators will do it for them.” At that time, Tony and I jostled over whether lawmakers would embargo CBR shipments until the parties involved figured out how to protect the public interest more effectively. Tony’s point was not it is

An industry with a proactive record of self-regulation risks losing control to big government. going to happen, but that if the parties involved in hauling CBR did not act, it will happen.

As many readers now know, the proposed DOT specification changes (still not open to the public) are rolling around the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The OMB has broad latitude in what it can do with the DOT recommendations, including putting a temporary hold on issuing the final specification and addressing the issue of combustible gasses.

The point is that almost two years after Lac-Mégantic, a solution for avoiding CBR derailment explosions is non-existent. The proposed specification revision will likely decrease but probably not stop fireball derailments.

To Tony’s point, the longer CNN is able

to draw eyeballs to television or computer screens with CBR explosions, the more likely legislators will see the ratings potential of these events and use them to create an opportunity to campaign behind the shield of public safety. There could be an increase in delays on finalizing the new tank car design or, worst-case, an embargo against CBR. Momentum will quickly become the enemy here. Media presents what brings eyeballs to the screen. In the digital age, ratings are micromanaged in real time and stories are repeated as long as there is an audience to sigh, wince, or scold on cue.

Maybe it’s not an embargo. Perhaps its pressure for the installation of ECP brakes on all CBR (or just all) tank railcars. That would not be unlike the situation following the horrible MetroNorth passenger accident that recently occurred. Immediately thereafter, Positive Train Control (PTC) was front and center as a means of avoiding potential crashes in the future. The “failure” to have PTC installed before another deadline extension is a cause for a modern day political crusader.

Right or wrong, the message is being delivered shrouded in the cloth of safety. An industry with a proactive and outstanding record of self-regulation risks losing control to big government.

Safety is and has been the centerpiece of rail transportation. All statistical data regarding derailments and derailment related injuries support that statement.

Without a doubt, that will continue to be true. That message may be lost unless an agreement is found to address the root causes of CBR firebombs.

Next month I’ll have a report from the 29th Rail Equipment Finance Conference. Meanwhile: Got questions? Set them free at dnahass@railfin.com.

We’re current, are you? FRA Regulations FRA News:

Mechanical Department Regulations A combined reprint of the Federal Regulations that apply specifically to the Mechanical Department. Spiral bound.

Part Title 210 Railroad Noise Emission Compliance Regulations 215 Freight Car Safety Standards 216 Emergency Order Procedures: Railroad Track, Locomotive and Equipment 217 Railroad Operating Rules 218 Railroad Operating Practices - Blue Flag Rule 221 Rear End Marking Device-passenger, commuter/freight trains 223 Safety Glazing Standards 225 Railroad Accidents/Incidents Update 1-1-15 229 Locomotive Safety Standards 231 Safety Appliance Standards 232 Brake System Safety Standards Update 1-6-15

BKMFR

Part 234 – Grade Crossing Signal System Safety— This final rule requires railroads that operate one or more trains through highway-rail or pathway crossings to submit information to the U.S. DOT National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory about the crossings through which they operate.

These amendments, mandated by section 204 of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, require railroads to submit information about previously unreported and new highway-rail and pathway crossings to the U.S. DOT National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory and to periodically update existing crossing data.

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Bridge Safety Standards FRA Part 237 establishes Federal safety requirements for railroad bridges. This rule requires track owners to implement bridge management programs, which include annual inspections of railroad bridges, and to audit the programs. Bridge Safety Standards Part 237 also requires track owners to know the safe load capacity of bridges and to conduct special inspections if the weather or other conditions warrant such inspections. Softcover. Spiral bound.

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